This is a question that changes through the years. From what sources do you get your daily supply of the news?
Is it the daily or weekly newspaper? How about television news, such as CNN, Fox News, or the NBC Nightly News? Is it The Daily Show with Jon Stewart?
If you’re wired to the internet do you obtain your daily scan of the news from the digital pages of various web sites, perhaps USA Today.com, or the BBC? The answer to such a question is complicated. The one commonality is that we obtain what we call news from many sources.
Newspaper, radio, television, online, all are purveryors of the daily news, and most of us receive news from more than one source. The advent of the internet means another age of changing habits.
For example, a hundred years ago, most news came from local newspapers, or word of mouth. The accuracy of one was not necessarily greater than the other. Newspapers of 100 years ago were biased opinion machines. You know, like Fox News is today.
At one time we subscribed to the local daily newspaper, USA Today, and religiously viewed local television news, national television news, and always started the day with radio news. That has changed.
In the 21st century we have forgone the expense of the daily newspaper, except for the Sunday edition. 24 hour cable news means we can watch national news whenever we want, rather than at 5:30 PM, the fixed time for network news broadcasts. We still manage to listen to Perry and Price on morning radio, but we’ve cut out Price altogether, and allow for minimal commentary from Perry.
The big gainer is online news. With RSS feeds and a web browser, internet news sources have proliferated in ways print and broadcast media never could. I subscribe to and scan dozens of online publications, many of which are internet versions of the mainstream media counterparts.
Daily news comes from many sources these days, and a variety of perspectives and opinions help to filter out what is worthless vs. worthwhile. Sometimes that happens in reverse.
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart even provides cable television viewers with a look at news that doesn’t show up on CNN, Fox, or CBS, let alone in The New York Times.
Where do you get your daily news?